1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a catalyst having metal catalyst nanoparticles supported on natural cellulose fibers and a method of preparing the same, whereby natural cellulose fibers are subjected to specific pretreatment to increase a surface area and form defects on the surface thereof and metal catalyst nanoparticles are then supported on the natural cellulose fibers in a highly dispersed state, thereby providing improved catalysis while allowing production of the catalyst at low cost.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the field of catalysts, two major issues have been actively studied in recent years. One is to prepare a support having a large surface area and a uniform pore distribution adequate for a corresponding reaction while guaranteeing physical and chemical stability and the other is to prepare a catalyst exhibiting maximum activity at minimum cost by supporting catalyst nanoparticles in a highly dispersed state. The present disclosure relates to preparing a catalyst support having good porosity and a large surface area from a biomaterial while allowing easy support of nanocatalyst.
Various methods of processing various biomaterials into carbon materials through pretreatment have been proposed. O. Ioannidou et al. (Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 11 (2007)1966-2005) disclose a procedure for processing various agricultural residues into activated carbon. Applicable agricultural residues include wheat, corn straw, olive pits, bagasse, birch wood, miscanthus, sunflower shells, pine cones, rapeseed, cotton residues, olive residues, Eucalyptus maculata, sugar cane bagasse, almond shells, peach pits, grape seeds, straw, oat husks, corn stover, apricot pits, cotton stalks, cherry pits, peanut shells, nut shells, rice husks, corncobs, corn husks, hazelnut shells, pecan shells, rice husks, rice straw, etc., which are activated and processed into materials with a surface area of hundreds to thousands of m2/g. It should be noted that, since the raw materials have significantly varying characteristics, different materials are used for different purposes. It is also disclosed that materials containing more lignin tend to have more macropores after activation and those containing more fibers (cellulose) tend to have more micropores following activation.
Fibrous biomaterials like henequen fibers are suitable for use as a catalyst support having physical/chemical durability because of their characteristic fiber bundle structure. Since henequen contains a lot of cellulose components, however, it yields a lot of micropores. Thus, special surface treatment is required to provide more mesopores than the micropores for application to catalytic reactions.
The inventors of the present disclosure carried out research to process fibrous biomaterials such as henequen having a lot of micropores due to rich cellulose components into physically/chemically durable catalyst supports, in particular, those appropriate for catalytic reaction. As a result, we found out that, through a series of electron beam treatment, heat treatment at high temperature and chemical surface treatment using henequen fibers as a raw material, a cellulose catalyst support could be prepared which has a large surface area and uniform pore distribution and allows easy support of metal catalyst in a highly dispersed state through introduction of functional groups to the surface thereof.